Thursday, 22 December 2016

An outstanding Korean leader

By
New Worker correspondent

Millions of communists in Korea and all
over the world recalled the outstanding achievements of dear leader Kim Jong Il
at events to mark the 5th anniversary of his passing on 17th December 2011 last
weekend.

London Korean solidarity activists,
including NCP leader Andy Brooks, presented floral tributes during a ceremony
at the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) embassy in London on
Saturday 17th December hosted by the new ambassador Comrade Choe Il.
Other bouquets were laid by Michael Chant and Chris Coleman from the RCPB(ML)
and Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).

Following in Kim Il Sung’s footsteps, Kim
Jong Il led the Workers Party of Korea into the 21st century to build a strong
and prosperous democratic republic. Kim Jong Il was a leading Marxist thinker
who made an important contribution to modern communist theory, as well as an
astute statesman who led the Korean people through thick and thin to overcome
natural disasters, imperialist blockade and diplomatic isolation.

Kim Jong Il made an immense contribution
to Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology. In his 1982 work On the Juché Idea, Kim Jong Il brought together and systematised
the Juché theory; his 1994 thesis Socialism
is a Science affirmed that socialism would eventually become the economic
system of the entire world because it is the only form of society in which
people can be truly free.

Kim Jong Il worked tirelessly to ease
tension on the Korean peninsula to pave the way towards the peaceful
reunification of Korea whilst at the same time ensuring the DPRK’s defence
against the threats and provocations of US imperialism and its lackeys.

On 15th June 2000 dear leader Kim Jong Il
and President Kim Dae Jung of south Korea signed the historic North–South Joint
Declaration. This was an historic landmark in the struggle of the Korean people
to reunify their homeland that had forcibly been divided by the US imperialists
following the Second World War. The Declaration opened up a new era for
independence, peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula
until the US-sponsored anti-national and anti-communist Lee Myung Bak clique in
the south began to sabotage its spirit and principles.

US imperialism can never forgive the DPRK
for being the first country since the second world war to defeat it on the
battlefield, setting an example for all people fighting for independence and
self-determination. Its revenge continues unabated to this day.

The Americans and their south Korean
lackeys are working constantly to try to isolate the DPRK and the movement for
national reunification. Peace campaigners and trade unionists have been jailed
under south Korea’s fascist National Security Law whilst the joint US–south
Korean military exercises aimed at invading the DPRK take the Korean peninsula
ever closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war.

The DPRK has had no alternative but to
develop a nuclear deterrent to defend its socialist system. At the same time it
has pledged that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons, and it has
also vowed never to threaten the use of nuclear weapons nor allow the transfer
of nuclear technology to other countries.

Kim Jong Il was a great leader of the
Korean people who devoted his entire life to serving the Korean people in the
cause of building a human-centred society, a cause that is one espoused by the
democratic and anti-imperialist forces the world over.